With World Autism Awareness Day on Wednesday, the former Coronation Street actor reveals how he and his wife Lisa struggled to stay together as pressure built

Girl power:
Keith says his fight for Mia has unleashed his own potential

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For parents of autistic children the statistics aren’t good. The divorce rate is as high as 80% but, if any couple is proof you can make it through the trauma of bringing up a child with autism spectrum disorder, it’s Keith Duffy and his wife Lisa.

Not that it’s been easy.

Their 14-year-old daughter Mia was diagnosed with autism when she was 18 months old and they both handled the news very differently.

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While Lisa went into denial, Keith tried to be as proactive as he could – interspersed with very low periods – and there were times when it all seemed too much for the pair.

Yet, ironically Keith credits bonding over the children with getting them through.

“A lot of couples break up and there were certain points it was very tough,” says Keith, 39, who met Lisa when he was 19 – just as he joined Boyzone and Lisa worked in a clothes store in Dublin.

“Thank God we stuck together, got through hard times and are still together.”

The couple first noticed Mia was different to other children on a trip to Disneyland when she was one and their son Jay was four.

Whenever she got excited she’d bend one hand and stretch out the other – which they now know is tensing. She slept very little, didn’t hold eye contact or socialise well.

“She wasn’t responding to her name,” he recalls. “We thought she was deaf and took her for tests but they said her hearing was fine – something else might be wrong, but they weren’t qualified to tell us.

“We were distraught – we were young and finding our way, we were worried sick. I could see my wife stressing so I tried to avoid the topic.

"Then I was asked to go to a golfing event for the Red Door School for the education of children with autism. I had no clue what autism was and when it was explained to me that it was a neurological developmental disorder of the brain, and all the symptoms, it became increasingly apparent my daughter was autistic, and I started to get very upset.”

Happy family: Keith, Lisa, Jordan and Mia (Photo: WENN)

Keith went home and told Lisa his findings. “She could see I’d been crying and she panicked. I just said ‘Mia is autistic’ and her initial reaction was to slap me,” the pop star recalls.

“Then she burst into tears because we knew there was something, we just didn’t have a name for it – now we did and it made it real.

“All of our parents came to the house that afternoon and we had a cry-in.

“Then we needed to figure out what to do – she was 18 months old and where did we go from here? Everywhere I went the doors were closed – there were no services available and no one really understood the education that was needed.

“Everyone was telling me that early diagnosis is essential for the future of the child but if you go through the State health system then it’s at least a two-year waiting list.

“Without diagnosis you can’t get the appropriate intervention or schooling and the child is going to be misplaced and misunderstood. Autism manifests itself many different ways – every child is different as it can be mild to extreme.

“Every autistic child has a potential but most of them never reach it because the facilities are not in place to give them that opportunity. I was dizzy with information.”

Keith and Lisa ended up going to a private doctor to get Mia diagnosed, which for Keith was a traumatic experience.

“He directed about 50 questions to me and my wife, listened to every answer and when he finished he stood up and gave us some leaflets and said ‘Your daughter has autism. Read up on that and good luck’. We walked away none the wiser about what we should do,” says Keith.

“Lisa felt Mia would catch up and turn a corner but that wasn’t happening. Mia was becoming more and more isolated in her own world, there was no affection.

“Our little baby girl didn’t even want to sit on our knee or give us a hug – if she wanted something she’d grab you by the wrist and push your hand in the direction of the cupboard.

"All the ideals you have for your kids before you have them went out the window. Jay would ask why his sister didn’t want to talk to him, which was devastating.”

In a natural human response, the couple wondered if they were somehow at fault. “My wife never smoked or drank when pregnant, she’s very healthy but she blamed herself and what she could have done differently when she was pregnant.

“I started asking everyone I knew about what I needed to do and then discovered a one-to-one form of education called applied behavioural analysis, which has had huge success with kids in the US.

“Autism is an epidemic – one in 88 children has autism in Ireland but ABA schooling didn’t exist in Ireland. I met another father of a child with autism who was fighting the State to open a school to provide the appropriate education.

“So I joined forces with him and we eventually managed to get enough funding so 18 kids, including Mia, got in. It meant she was getting intensive intervention on a one-to-one scale.”

Mia went there from the age of two until she was seven and progress was slow and testing – but evident. The couple had to be just as disciplined with her at home, including using a system called picture exchange communication which involved sticking a Polaroid picture of Mia’s favourite things like food and toys on a Velcro chart, which they would use when she wanted something.

Seeing the effect the schooling was having on Mia helped the couple too, and then a major breakthrough came when she was seven.

“Mia spent a lot of time in her room watching musicals, Annie in particular, over and over again with the TV right in front of her,” recalls Keith.

“One Sunday we were watching TV and Mia ran into the room and just stopped and sang Tomorrow by Annie. She’d never spoken before in her life!

"She sang it like a deaf person would sing but we were just blown away. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house. The education was moving in the right direction: the more the language came the more tactile she became and the more hugs you’d get.”

Soon Mia was progressing so well she was integrated in to mainstream school for part of a day, which then increased to a full day, then three days until she was able to join the school full time.

“The school was very accommodating – unfortunately there are some schools where parents don’t want children with autism in their child’s classroom because they fear the kids might be abusive so they stand in the way of helping them, which is just bizarre,” he says.

“We were allocated a special needs assistant for the first six months in mainstream school to keep an eye on Mia.

“Children can be cruel if you stand out but Mia sees the good in everybody so they find her endearing. She’s surrounded by friends who care about her.”

Mia girl: Keith with his daughter

Now 14, Mia is fully aware she has autism and has different ways of processing things.

“This upsets her from time to time,” says Keith. “Socially she still enjoys being on her own, and her friends are growing up a lot quicker than her emotionally. They all go to the shopping mall on a Friday evening in a short skirt and make-up to find boys and Mia’s not in to that at all.

“I’m glad about that but I’m not – you want your kids to enjoy life and be confident and independent. She still does tensing occasionally if she gets excited, which she acknowledges, and I’ll tell her to stop if we’re in company because she needs to know how to behave appropriately around others.”

Since Mia’s diagnosis, Keith has dedicated a lot of his time to raise money and awareness of autism. He’s taken part in marathons, Ironman triathlons and cycle rides, and with the help of other parents has organised so many events and campaigns he was named National Philanthropist of the Year for his work with Irish Autism Action (IAA) last year. He does believe attitudes have changed.

“The movie Rain Man sent the wrong message completely so the initial battle we had was undoing the bad work that had been done.

“We had to re-educate people about what autism is, so they can help people like me and other parents with autistic kids, rather than frown.

“We want to give every child with autism an opportunity of reaching their own full potential, whatever that may be.”

Mia hopes she’ll follow her dad, who starred in Coronation Street, and Jay into the acting world, while Keith says that his daughter’s condition has helped him reach his full potential too.

“I could get on stage with Boyzone and entertain but when it came to public speaking or talking sincerely I’d disguise my shyness by trying to be the joker.

“Mia gave me the confidence to be able to stand on stage and speak about something I feel passionate about. She’s given me that person,” he reveals.

“And I got so lucky with Lisa. She’s the best mother I’ve ever seen. I’m not just saying that because I’m biased but how you judge that is the love my children have for her. I joke I come a very far third; the kids come first, then the dogs and then me.”